History of Beni Farah

Little is known about Beni Farah or precisely little of documented history.

The local legend tells us about a village being built and destroyed seven times. In fact it's not a proper destruction but it seems, according to legends again, that severe droughts have hit the village and left its population with no water to drink or irrigate the land with. So at each time the local tribes leave the village; and the severe weather and time play the usual role of destroying uninhabited houses and farmlands. Once snow and rainfall are back and fountains are again pouring water out the farmers and shepherds begin to resettle again and revive the village. This pattern can be seen in recent history. Since the 1970s Beni Farah is suffering from a continuous drought. The rainfall is scarce and the snow cannot be seen but rarely in Beni Farah streets and peaks. Only modern technology, especially water pumps and canalization, has prevented the total abandon again of the village by its inhabitants.

There are archaeological evidences showing that Beni Farah existed (likely intermittently) since old times. French archeologist Robert Boutet has discovered prehistoric escargotieres in the north of Beni Farah. It's believed these vestiges go back to the Capsian civilization (a mesolithic culture named after the town of Gafsa in Tunisia and dated between 4000 to 7000 BCE ([Joleaud 1934], pp 320).

Large crafted stones can be seen in Laamda in the area of Ain al-Gat south of the village. Pr Emile Masqueray surveyed this area in 1876 and reported these ruins as the remains of 20 roman houses [Ould-Braham 1999]. Westerns (likely to be french) have excavated the area sometime in the first 20th century as I have been told. Wether they'e archeologists or treasure hunters is unclear. The result is unfortunately that these invaluable edifices are destroyed. Only scattered cut rocks are left.

Along the footpath linking Thaklih n'Kasha to al-Kaa n'Foulka similar stones are found as well as at the west of Liana, Thiwririne and Thizi Amahashmaggen. This kind of stones is typical of the middle ages and older and have no resemblance to the kind of material used to erect the existing houses.

At Ikhef n'Souf there were some Latin inscriptions on a large rock near the main spring water of the same name. This might be a hallmark of a detachment of the Legio Il Augusta stationed there to fight berber rebels or protect water sources vital for irrigation in the fertile plains of Loutaya during the 2nd to 4th century CE. it's, unfortunately, now vandalised and beyong recognition. This is a great loss to understanding a part of the history of this area.

Historical burial sites in Beni Farah (Ain Zaatout)

The hill known as al-Maqbarth nah at'Talba, overlooking the present village center, contains remains of pottery and earthware. According to the locals this is where the village was standing before the last massive immigration out of the village and its demise. Unfortunately the archeological significance of this site has never been valued by specialists.

The majestic Thishoobar (Towers) overseeing most of the inhabited and farmed areas of Beni Farah is composed of huge rocks and seems to be a fort in ancient times. Its eastern part of it is still contains remains of fortifications used seemingly to alert the population of eminent threats. Remains of what can be considered either a wall or stairs descending from the top of Thishoobar down to the relatively flat area southward are still present. This edifice is likely to be built by the ancestors of current Farhis a couple of centuries ago due to the fact that it's constructed by materials and methods that were practiced until the 1970s.

Thishoobar: at the top are ruins of an ancient fort

Present Farhis do disagree on their origin and the prevailing opinion is that at least part of their ancestors have lived in the area for a very long time. This makes the matter of keeping track of tribal origins irrelevant and explains why Farhis greatly differ in this matter to their neighbors especially Ouled Zian for instance. A. E. Metard [Metard 1941] is of this opinion and classifies Ah Frah as one of the tribes of Aures who are original to where they are now according to the oldest available historical accounts. Ah Frah, as most of Shawi tribes, lived mostly secluded in their fortified qalaats (forts) away from any central authority.

For a more recent history, Emile Masqueray [Masqueray 1876] reported that Beni Farah was under the authority of Biskra's Bey during the Ottoman period. Every year Farhis paid to Biskra 30 duros (aound US$1100 of 2006's money)(*) but when the Turkish nouba or mahalla (column) travels to them they add 70 nattas to the annual payment.

* 30 duros = 150 francs = 675 grams of silver = 43.5483 grams of gold = $1099.09 (using dollar to gold price of 11 May 2006 when gold fixing was $715.50/oz = $25.23852/gram).

Beni Farah as it appeared in "Congres de la colonisation rurale, Alger, 1930"

Beni Farah under French rule:

According to Jean Morizot in his book "L'Aurès, ou, Le mythe de la montagne rebelle", page 131, the tribe of Beni Farah (with many other Auressian tribes of Oued Abdi and nearby areas) submitted to the French military authority in May 1844 after the destruction of Nara by Duc d'Aumale. After that, the only tie the french established and kept with the village was the regular visits of the pitiless collectors of taxes and fines.

During the 1844 to 1962 Farhis as a tribe were not part of any popular revolution in Aures but at the begining of the twentieth century a religious and educational awakening led by Sheikh Belgacem ou'Nacer swept the large village. It saw the edification of a new mosque and medrassa (school) by the local popoluation and an unprecdented enthusiasm for education. Beni Fraha became quickly a place to go to for education for neighbouring tribes. Even the mogaddam (leader) of the Zawiya Rahmania of Biskra didn't mind sending his child to be educated by Sheikh Belgacem. The colonial administration felt uneasy about Sheikh Belgacem's influence, so in around 1906 they started building a two classrooms school to counter his work but very few children attended it. Parents were always suspicious towards the colonial intentions.

During the Algerian revolution (1954-1962) Beni Farah was part of Wilaya 1 (Aures), Mintaka (Zone) 3. After the Soummam Congress of August 1956 it became a part of the newly created Wilaya 6 (Sahara), mintaka 4. See below for more about the contribution of this village to the Algerian revolution.

After Independence

After the independence in 1962 Beni Farah was part of the Aures wilaya (district) and daira of Biskra until 1974. From 1974 to 1983 it was attached to the daira of Ain Touta, wilaya of Batna after the promotion of Biskra to the status of wilaya. After the administrative reorganization of 1983 Beni Farah was again reattached to the wilaya of Biskra as part of the newly created daira of El Kantara.

Farhi conscripts killed in World War I **:

Note: "ben" is the Arabic word for "son of".

Assas Belkacem ben Mebarek, Attar Belkacem ben Amor, Benbrahim Brahim ben Mohamed, Benouchene Mohameded ben Belkacem, Besbas Ahmed ben Embarek, Bounehas Mekhlouf ben Mohamed, Chiha Mebarek ben Mohamed, Djemma Mohamed ben Ali, Hazmani Djemoui ben Belaïd b Belkacem, Kaabache Mohamed ben Ali, Kacha Mohamed ben Mohamed dit (called) Ammar, Latreche Mohamed ben Amar

Farhi conscripts killed in World War II:

Ammar Chellout, Mohamed Djezzar, ? Seghirou, Lakhdar Zehnit

Farhi victims of 08 May 1945 massacres:

? Benberkane, Ahmed Balous (Father of Farida Balous, a news presenter for the Algerian national TV in the 1970s), ? Aouragh

(**) This list is courtesy of Sami Boulksibat. Many thanks Sami.

War of Liberation (1954 – 1962)

The rugged nature of Beni Farah and the legendary tenacity of its Berber people were obvious reasons for the active presence in the area of the National Liberation Army (ALN) during the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962). Beni Farah was part of the Mintaka (Zone) 3 of the Wilaya 1 (Aures). At the night of 1st November 1954 the group (foudj) of moudjahideen of Beni Farah was under the command of Mohamed Benboulaid, brother of the legendary commander Mustapha Benboulaid.

For the village the war started when, one night of November 1954, the moudjahidine cut the phone lines linking it with Biskra, surrounded the small group of Goumia (Algerian auxiliaries of the French Army) based at what is now the primary school then headed towards the Gaid's home. The Gaid, an outsider by the name of Taher Ouamen designated by the colonial administration, living in Tizi n'Djamorth (presently the home of Mohamed Guejjouj) was dragged out from his bed and asked to renounce his involvement with the French. When he refused, the moudjahidine executed him. Meantime the moudjahidine surrounding the goumia acted very cautiously and avoided storming the building as the surrounded soldiers were locals. The goumia were demoralised when children and teenagers started throwing showers of stones at them, jeering and reminding them that they have sided against their own people and country. The moudjahideen lifted the siege after a while. Eventually all the goumia resigned afterwards and stopped their cooperation with the French authorities. After this incident Beni Farah stayed Gaid-less until the end of the war. The population where under the authority of a local FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale) revolutionary committee.

Until 1959 Beni Farah served as a link between the mountains of Ahmar Kheddou and Metlili and a resting base for FLN/ALN personel transiting between the Tell and the Sahara. It was a constant target of French "combing" operations that eventually lead to many skirmishes around the village and a major battle in Orchmadhass refered to by the French army as "Operation 126". This military engagement in the northern mountainous part of Beni Farah on 27-28 September 1956 involved an estimated 122 ALN fighters and thousands of French troupes. The ALN moudjahidin were surrounded at down while resting at the water spring of Th'ghasra by French forces of the 7e RTA (Régiment de Tirailleurs Algériens) from the west and north and additional units coming from Oued Abdi. The battle raged for two days and saw the usage of artillery and aerial bombardment by the French army. The ALN moudjahideen were quickly out of ammunition in many cases and their strength was reduced by the loss of 72 of their comrades including two women (the sisters Zakia and Ourida Ouragh). The remaining moudjahideen, including their commander Mohamed Benboulaid, the eldest brother of the legendary Mustapha Benboulaid, desengaged from the battle at the fall of darkness.

It is believed that this battle is the second largest engagement between the ALN and the French army during the whole war of independence (The biggest battle being Djebel Djorf, Aures). But since the outcome was not apparently in favour of the ALN, despite the heroic stand of the Moudjahideen against a far superior French force, the official Algerian history tended to ignore this battle until 1991 when mediatised commemoration festivities were organised. Mohamed Cherif Abbas, head of the Organisation Nationale des Moudjahidine (ONM) and a no stranger to the area during the war, was among the personalities celebrating this event.

The French army wanted to destroy the moudjahidines in the area at all costs. In 10 July 1957, which was the day of Eid al Adha, thousands of French military personnel swarmed into Beni Farah from east and south and encircled it. They ordered everyone to assemble in the village square (Zaadhoudh) and kept them for 48 hours while house searches and tracking of militants and fighters carried out. At the end the French shot 19 civilians suspected of helping the FLN and took 35 prisoners (all civilians).

In April 1959 Beni Farah was again the theatre of another large scale combing operation that achieved nothing but more civilian casualties and property destruction.

In 15 June 1959 the French army established a permanent base in Beni Farah at Al Markaz. The barracks also hosted the personnel of the infamous Sections Administratives Spécialisées (SAS) administration. Ambushes and punitive expeditions became daily events here.

One of the most successful operations of the ALN in the village is the ambush of Gueddili in 17 August 1959 where a French armed convoy coming from Djemoura was ambushed by the ALN fighters at around 23:00 in a narrow pass between Gueddili and th'Ment Achih. The engagement was brief but decisive and the convoy was completely decimated. The French casualties were estimated at 50 between dead and injured.

In the morning (18 August 1959) the French stormed the village and killed 12 civilians and burned numerous houses. Some prisoners were also executed. Meantime the moudjahidines managed to plant a mine that blew up a French military truck full of soldiers. It's reported that the French immediately executed 9 prisoners as a retribution.

It's also during this hot month that the French leaked the plan of the projected destruction of the village and the removal of its inhabitants elsewhere as they have done to Maafa before (Most of Maafa population were refugees in Beni Farah at that time). Fortunately this plan could not go on as the village was too large and its houses scattered in so many valleys and hills.

A French military watch tower built in 1959

Martyrs cemetery in Beni Farah

In November 1959, the moudjahidines ambushed a French military engineering unit travelling on the road towards El Kantara. It's been reported that the enemy casualties were 18 dead soldiers.

In 25 September 1960, 13 moudjahidines classhed with French units in Laabar mountain from 14:00 to 19:00 and shot down a helicopter. They managed to withdraw elsewhere under the cover of darkness without any serious casualties.

In 11 January 1960 an attempt of an ALN sniper to kill a French commander, Captain Ribadaut or Ribadot, who has just finished addressing the rounded up villagers (la rafle) in the main square of Zaadhoudh and heading towards his HQ in Al Markaz, ended up wounding the commander in the leg. Unsurprisingly the French took severe retaliatory measures including hitting the village cafe by a an artillery shell, indiscriminate air attacks and killing of domestic animals (donkeys and mules).

The ALN in Beni Farah has seen a remarkable stability in terms of military leadership. It's mainly under the command of Mohamed Benboulaid as Mintaka (Zone) 3 of Wilaya 1 (Aures). After the Soummam Congress of August 1956 it became the Mintaka 4 of the newly created Wilaya 6 (Sahara) but always under the leadership of Mohamed Benboulaid until his martyrdom. He was then replaced by Omar Sakhri as the overall commander of Mintaka 4.

Some of the French armed units that have seen action in the Beni Farah are:

- The 47th Infantry Battalion who built the Al Markaz in 1959.

- The 7^e régiment de tirailleurs algériens.

- The 2eme Régiment Etranger de Parachutistes (REP) of the French Légion Etrangere when it was camping around El-Kantara. Its tactics of high mobility on feet in rugged terrains were problematic to the Algerian moudjahideen particularly when the 2eme REP elements occupied water sources for long and consecutive periods of time.

- Units of the «Tirailleurs Sénégalais» before being demobilized in December 1958.

During the war the price the local population has paid was very heavy: 277 martyrs most of them civilians. Most of these dead are buried in the Martyr's Cemetery, very near to the old French army barracks. A comprehensive listing of Farhi couhada can be seen here.

List of Farhi martyrs of the Algerian revolution

Numbers of Farhi martyrs during the Algerian revolution:

Year Number of martyrs

1956 14

1957 35

1958 24

1959 79

1960 89

1961 30

1962 06

Total 277

On the names Beni Farah and Ain Zaatout

Beni Farah is officially called Ain Zaatout; a name of a debated origin and seldom used by Farhis and their neighbours who use either the Arabic name "Beni Farah" or "Ah Frah" in Shawi dialect. There is a strong believe that the name Ain Zaatout was originated by the colonial French administration at the first half of the 20th century. Colonel Niox, author of "La geographie militaire VI: Algerie et Tunisie" in 1890, mentions the village by the name Beni Farah (although with a somewhat erroneous spelling) and not Ain Zaatout. The Encarta encyclopaedia and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center show the village by the name "Beni Ferah" as is the case in old French maps of Algeria. The antiquarian bookseller Sotheran's (based at York, England) has in 2004 put for sale on its web site (www.sotherans.co.uk) the "A personal photograph album recording a family trip to Algeria" containing photographs of Beni Farah (spelled Beni Ferah in the original English captions of photos) taken between February 1923 to 1924. The linguistic and ethnologist Andre Basset (1895-1956) used the name "Ait Frah", the Kabyle translation of Ah Frah, in his writings about the village. In the document "Un exemple de l'extension des services des P.T.T. La région du Sud Constantinois." No 59 published on 20 March 1949 by the PTT (French Post and Telecommunications service), the name Ain Zaatout has been used.

Note: In November 2005 I had the opportunity to quickly go through the birth registration archives of the municipality and noticed that the first use of Ain Zaatout dates to 1900.

Whereas the word Beni Farah names the village after its inhabitants, the name Ain Zaatout refers to a spring (Ain in Arabic) of some "Zaatout". Zaatout or Zaadhodh, as is pronounced locally, is the main public place in the village and there is a nearby spring called Thafoughalt hence the name "Ain Zaatout" in Arabic. Some Farhi elders say that zaatout itself is the name of a bird that used to live in considerable numbers around the place by this name. As far as one can tell neither the contemporary Shawi nor the Kabyle dialects use this word although some sources translate it to pigeon wood which is in accordance with the elders' saying.

Beni Farah has been mentioned as Beni Ferah in the following publications:

- The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, by N. Lloyd and Co., Ltd., 1864

- Man, by Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1901

- In the Land of Mosques & Minarets, by Milburg Francisco Mansfield, 1908

- The Mediterranean: Seaports and Sea Routes, Including Madeira, the Canary Islands, the Coast of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Handbook for Travelers., by Karl Baedeker (Firm), 1911

- Bela Bartok, "Die Volksmusik der Araber von Biskra und Umgebung", Zeitschrift fur Musikwissenschaft 2, no. 9 (June 1920)

References:

- [Joleaud 1934] L. Joleaud and R Laffitte, "Découvertes archéologiques de M. Robert Boutet dans le Sud marocain", Journal de la Société des Africanistes, Year 1934, Volume 4, Issue 4-2

- [Ould-Braham 1999] Ouahmi Ould-Braham, "Mission scientifique de Masqueray dans l’Aures et ses dependances (1875-1878)", Etudes et Documents Berberes, 17, 1999 : pp. 19-129

- [Mitard 1941] A. E. Mitard, Aperçu des grands traits géographiques de l'Aurès, Algérie, Revue de Géographie Alpine, 1941, Volume 29, pp. 557-578.

- [Masqueray 1876] Emile Masqueray, Documents historiques recueillis dans l'Aures, Revue Africaine, July 1876.

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